UPDATE (3/31/15): Thanks to another tip we can confirm that the new SHIELD P2523 will have the Tegra X1 SoC in it. From this manifest document you'll see the Tegra T210 listed (the same part marketed as X1) as well as the code name "Loki." Remember that the first SHIELD Portable device was code named Thor. Oh, so clever, NVIDIA.

Based on a rumor posted by Brad over at Lilliputing, it appears we can expect an updated NVIDIA SHIELD Portable device sometime later in 2015. According to both the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi certification websites, a device going by the name "NVIDIA Shield Portable P2523" has been submitted. There isn't a lot of detail though:

802.11a/b/g/n/ac dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi

Bluetooth 4.1

Android 5.0

Firmware version 3.10.61

We definitely have a new device here as the initial SHIELD Portable did not includ 802.11ac support at all. And though no data is there to support it, you have to assume that NVIDIA would be using the new Tegra X1 processor in any new SHIELD devices coming out this year. I already previewd the new SHIELD console from GDC that utilizes that same SoC, but it might require a lower clocked, lower power version of the processor to help with heat and battery life on a portable unit.

There’s no information about the processor, screen, or other hardware. But if the new Shield portable is anything like the original, it’ll probably consist of what looks like an Xbox-style game controller with an attached 5 inch display which you can fold up to play games on the go.

And if it’s anything like the new NVIDIA Shield console, it could have a shiny new NVIDIA Tegra X1 processor to replace the aging Tegra 4 chip found in the original Shield Portable.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it also had a higher-resolution display, more memory, or other improvements.

Keep an eye out - NVIDIA may be making a push for even more SHIELD hardware this summer.

The details are a little sparse but we now have hints of what AMD's plans are for next year and 2017. In 2016 we should see AMD chips with ARM cores, the Skybridge architecture which Josh described almost a year ago, which will be pin compatible allowing the same motherboard to run with either an ARM processor or an AMD64 depending on your requirements. The GPU portion of their APUs will move forward on a two year cycle so we should not expect any big jumps in the next year but they are talking about an HPC capable part by 2019. The final point that The Register translated covers that HPC part which is supposed to utilize a new memory architecture which will be nine times faster than existing GDDR5.

"Consumer and commercial business lead Junji Hayashi told the PC Cluster Consortium workshop in Osaka that the 2016 release CPU cores (an ARMv8 and an AMD64) will get simultaneous multithreading support, to sit alongside the clustered multithreading of the company's Bulldozer processor families."

Less than two weeks after releasing the last preview build, 10041, Microsoft has pushed an update for users in the “Fast” ring. We have been asking for more rapid releases and we are beginning to get them. I spent quite a bit of Monday downloading, installing, and rebooting to install Build 10049. Now that I have used it for a bit, I can give my opinion.

Before we get to what's new, I would like to get into what is fixed (and broken). First, apparently Visual Studio 2015 has some issues, particularly with deploying to external devices. On the other hand, my usage of Visual Studio 2013 seems fine and stable. Second, a bug is preventing Hyper-V from being enabled for users who want to create a virtual machine. If you upgrade to 10049 from a previous build, where Hyper-V has been activated, then “everything works fine” when you update.

One of the listed bugs for Build 10041 (the previous build) was that Windows Update would tell you to restart to complete updates even if nothing was installed, and that the messages could be “ignored safely”. I never had that happen in 10041, but have seen it this afternoon in 10049. No big deal.

As for fixed? When I upgraded to 10041, StarCraft II stopped working and apparently the bug extended to Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel, League of Legends, and others. This has been fixed in 10049. I can play StarCraft II without problems. Yay! Also, many sections of the new Settings app crashed when I attempted to open them. This nuisance has been bugging me since one of the earlier builds from last year. It has mostly been fixed now. The only hiccup is “Apps & features”, which sometimes (but not always) crashes after the loading bar completes.

The main “feature” of this build is the introduction of Project Spartan. Now this is interesting. The browser itself feels a lot more smooth. I have been suspecting that Microsoft would include a DirectX 12 rendering path for Project Spartan, which would better explain the move to their “Edge” fork of Trident, but I have been unable to benchmark it. I have been trying to push sites with a lot of small draw calls, but it seems to be within the performance of a normal browser. One WebGL benchmark saw an increase of about 17% going between Internet Explorer 11 with Edge disabled and Project Spartan, but that is probably just more efficient rendering and JavaScript engines. So... nothing yet.

Apparently Cortana has been given some non-descript update. They might be referring to its integration with Spartan, which I have yet to test, but it is still unable to, for instance, set a timer or launch Photoshop.

It took me two installs to get it actually on my system, but it seems to be very stable for a pre-release operating system with a bunch of unfinished APIs and drivers. Looking good (but I'm still scared of Windows Dev Certification)!

Sharkoon is back with a brightly coloured and reasonably priced gaming mouse, the Shark Zone M20. It sports nine buttons including the DPI toggle which ranges between 400 - 3200 DPI and in the back is a compartment to hold the weights which ship with the mouse and allow you to customize it. The yellow lights can be switched on or off and you can set up a pulsation effect if that is your style, but you are stuck with that one colour. Kitguru found it to be a decent mouse, especially as they could purchase it for half the price of similar gaming mice from other companies.

"We look at quite a lot of gaming mice here at KitGuru, many of them sitting over the £50 mark. But what if you only have £25 to spend? Today we are taking a look at the Shark Zone M20 Gaming Mouse from Sharkoon, it boasts many of the same features found on high-end mice, could this be a hidden gem in the saturated peripherals market?"

If you haven't already done so you should start out with Al's deep dive into the new OCZ Vector 180 SSDs, which uses the Barefoot 3 controller with Toshiba A19 MLC flash and suffers similar issues to other drives using these components. Once you are done studying you can take a look at other reviews, such as the performance overview at The Tech Report of this drive which is extremely similar to the ARC 100 and Radeon R7 SSDs. The drives are definitely aimed at the value conscious user, while most are currently not in stock at Amazon, the pricing of 120GB @ $90, 240GB at $185 and 480 at $270 are not bad for initial release. The Tech Report does plan on doing more testing but from what they saw in their testing the new Vector 180 beats the 150 for performance.

"OCZ's Vector SSDs are among the fastest around, and now there's a new one. The Vector 180 combines the company's proprietary Barefoot 3 controller with Toshiba's latest "A19" NAND. We've taken a closer look at the drive—and OCZ's recent reliability rep—to see what's what."

The Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 7 motherboard offers a nice balance between price and performance, at $172 it is a bit pricey but when on sale for around the $150 mark it is a great deal. The onboard audio provided by Realtek's ALC1150 produced very good sound and while the Qualcomm Killer NIC E2201 doesn't offer benefits over a more generic NIC there are those who prefer the software which comes with it. The board overclocked very well for [H] manually, providing noticeable boosts with solid performance, however the EasyTune software provided them with some issues. Check out the full review right here.

"GIGABYTE's Z97X Gaming 7 promises solid overclocking and performance. The feature list for the Z97X Gaming 7 is long and includes gamer focused features like a dedicated audio amplifier, Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 support and more. We've had mixed results with the GIGABYTE lately, so the real question is; does it work?"

You might want to hold off reading this review as these coolers are very likely to grace our pages in the near future but if you can't wait then HiTech Legion is the place to go to check out these small coolers from Noctua. The 125mm NH-U9S fits in 4U cases while the 110mm NH-D9L can fit in 3U spaces, making them perfect for not only rack mounted cases but also for SFF builds. The weights are also smaller than usual, with the 92mm fan installed they weigh 618g and 531g respectively. For small builds with processors with a moderate TDP these are certainly worth your consideration.

"While Noctua’s new NH-U9S and NH-D9L were designed to comply with rack mount system standards, their low profile and horizontal airflow make them a natural choice for SFF and HTPC systems where CPU cooler space is limited. The Noctua NH-U9S meets 4U standards at 125mm tall, while the NH-D9L takes it a step further to meet the 110mm requirement of 3U standard."

The new generation of helium filled HDD from HGST take their longevity seriously, rating them at 2.5 million hours MTBF. This generation also has 7 disks squeezed into the shell, with current capacities reaching 8TB and a shingled 10TB model currently being tested for release later this year. The increased life and storage density are only part of the benefits that helium brings, 23% lower operating power and temperatures 4-5°C lower than traditional drives will also have an impact on data centre operating costs. In their article The Register did ask how long the HelioSeal will keep the helium contained and while they did not get an exact figure, the 5 year warranty gives you a good idea of a lower limit.

"HGST has announced second-generation helium drive tech after shipping a million gen-1 Helium drives and upping field reliability by 15 per cent."

A little late this month, but there is yet another Top 20 PC Games of the month from Raptr. This one counts the amount of person-hours played per title over the month of February and presents them as a percent of their recorded total. This month finally shows some shake-up in the top five games, but not a lot. Still, this was the first time since November that we saw anything other than: League of Legends, World of Warcraft, DOTA 2, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Smite -- in that order -- at the top of the list.

Basically, Diablo III rose about a percent and a half to take the fifth-place spot from Smite. First through fourth maintain the exact same order as they have been in since October. In terms of percentage, League of Legends jumped back above 20% total usage and World of Warcraft dropped below 10% total time. Both Valve titles in the top five, DOTA 2 and CS:GO, saw an increase due to content patches.

There was a lot of shuffling in the bottom fifteen, but each have less total play time than the amount that WoW lost. Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA from Blizzard, joined the list at 1.09%. This launches them onto the list at lucky number thirteen. The only game to fall off the list was Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Don't worry, fans of DirectX 9, Star Wars: The Old Republic is still on the list.

"Samsung's 850 EVO SSD debuted in December inside the usual 2.5" case. Now, the drive is spreading to smaller mSATA and M.2 form factors. We've examined the new drives to see how the mini lineup compares to its full-sized forbear."

The teaser trailer for Blood Bowl 2 has been around for a while but was obviously not representative of what the game will look like in match. Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN has posted a new video which does feature a look at the new interface for those who find the NFL nowhere near as violent as they like their football. Cyanide is starting the game out with 8 races so it is possible that some of the more interesting balance issues caused by certain races in the first iteration will be ironed out, hopefully as they include new races they will be available for little or no money for those who purchased the initial release of this sequel. If you enjoy inflicting turn-based tactical trauma then keep your eyes out for this release.

"We’ve had a little chat with the makers of Blood Bowl II [official site] – and isn’t it nice to chat with people! – and peered at a few screenshots and swish trailers. With spring approaching, and therefore the turn-based tactical bloodsport’s release, we’re at the point in its marketing campaign where we get to see more of the game itself."